Jazz Guitar Blues : Improvisation

Five Exercises to develop jazz soloing
on the 12-bar blues form (for all levels)

Here's the accompanying PDF :

Learn these 5 basic exercises to practice jazz guitar blues improvisation.

In this video, you'll learn how to use different scales to fit the blues progression (in Bb) for soloing purposes. We start slowly, and then get to 5, 7 and 9-note scales in eight and sixteenth-notes :

1- "Minor" blues scale (the blues/rock sound)
2- "Major" blues scale (the country/southern sound)
3 -Arpeggios : basic 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 for every chord/sound
4 -Guide Tone : 3rd and 7th (and ornamentation)
5A- Scales : first five notes
5B- Scales : seven notes (the entire scale for each chord)
5C- Scales : nine notes (in sixteenth rhythmic values)

Remember, this is just "practicing" your jazz guitar blues soloing. You would never actually play like this at a jam session!

You have to prepare/exercise in the practice room, and then improvise, be creative and "let go" when soloing on the bandstand! This video deals with the former.

Further Reading

If you are looking for genuine jazz blues improvisation book of reference, I highly recommended this great book / CD set. It contains tons of blues lines, the "right" scales to use and timeless licks for jazz legends :